Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

A confraternity’s origin story 

 

[VALENCIENNES]. ABRÉGÉ DE L'HISTOIRE DU MIRACLE arrivé l’an mil huit en faveur de la ville de Valenciennes, avec le détail de l’etablissement de la procession générale qui se fait chaque année le 8 septembre, fête de la nativité de la sainte Vierge. Avec quelques prieres... aux usages de la confrérie dite des Royez. De plus, les indulgences et règlres pour les confrères et consoeurs associés à ladite confrérie érigée en l’église de Notre-Dame la Grande. Douai: Derbaix, [1768]. £485

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FIRST EDITION. 12mo, pp. 83, [1]; final page left blank, typographic headpieces and ornament to title-page; repair towards margin of title-page, not affecting text, very minor worming to upper margin, otherwise in very good condition; bound in late nineteenth-century calf-backed marbled boards, spine in compartments with gilt-ruled raised bands, lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, edges speckled red; joints, spine and corners rubbed; armorial bookplate of Dupont de St. Ouën to front pastedown.

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Very rare account of a Marian apparition which took place in Valenciennes in 1008 and led to the establishment of one of the most important confraternities in the city.

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The origins of the annual procession held in Valenciennes on the Feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, is traced back to a miracle which occurred when a pious hermit called Bertelain, praying for relief from a plague which was ravaging the city, encountered Mary. The author explains that, together with a host of angels, she encircled the city and surrounding areas with a ‘cordon’, instantly halting the spread of the disease and curing those afflicted within its bounds. The first procession took place a few days later (the 8th of September), followed by the creation of a reliquary to house the sacred cord, and the confraternity of the ‘Royez’, so called because of their processional dress which featured large ribbons known as ‘raïes’ (p.25). After this history of Marian devotion in Valenciennes and subsequent miracles, there are instructions for the observation of the feast, its rituals and liturgy, followed by the rules of the confraternity, a list of current confrères, a selection of various prayers, and the hymn of saints Ambrose and Augustine.

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The arms on the bookplate are those of Alphonse Fulgence Dupont de Saint-Ouën (1820-1892), an engraver born into a noble family from Valenciennes. 

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Le Boucq de Ternas, Amédée, Généalogie de la famille Dupont de Castille, Seigneur de Castille, d'Ogimont, de St-Ouen, Champville, Briscloque, etc. (Douai: Alfred Robaut, 1869), p.19; Migne, Encyclopédie théologique vol 42 (Paris: Migne, 1860), p.37; OCLC records copies at Lyon and the BnF. 

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